The UN Security Council loses legitimacy. This body needs to be urgently reformed to adequately represent developing countries. But reform progressed with difficulty.

Volodymyr Zelenskyj did not mince words at a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday. The committee should no longer represent a world that no longer exists, said the Ukrainian president, who was invited as a guest. Most importantly, he is aiming for veto power for the five permanent members, as Russia is one of them. “The veto in the hands of the aggressor has brought the UN to a dead end,” Zelensky said. Russia must revoke its veto power. And the 193 member states should be able to “override” the veto of Security Council members who have a two-thirds majority, he suggested. The council should also expand and give Germany a permanent seat.

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock later expressed her objection to Zelensky’s idea and rejected lifting Russia’s veto. But this is also clear to him: the UN Security Council is in dire need of reform, and not just because of Russia’s role. Developing countries and non-permanent members such as Germany and Japan have long pushed for more representation. Calls for reform have been particularly loud in Africa.

The countries of the continent have been angry for years because the Northern countries decided to resolve the conflicts on their continent. Despite the war in Ukraine, the conflict in Africa is still the most important issue at the UN Security Council, wrote Richard Gowan, director of the UN office of the Crisis Group think tank. In 2022, 86 of the 208 sessions discussed African issues. The majority of UN peacekeeping missions are in Africa, a continent of 1.5 billion people. But there have always been only three African countries in the Council that do not have veto power, the so-called A3. Currently these countries are Mozambique, Ghana and Gabon. “Generations of African council members have complained that former European colonial states dominate these discussions,” Gowan wrote.

Africa is underrepresented on the UN Security Council

African countries are underrepresented on the UN Security Council, says former German Ambassador to the UN Christoph Heusgen. “It’s time for this to change,” Heusgen recently told the German Press Agency (dpa). These reforms are very important because the UN Security Council is the center for global decision making regarding international peace and security. And the UN remains the only UN body with the authority to adopt legally binding resolutions and order coercive measures that are binding on all 193 member states.

Its composition, like that of the entire UN, is a relic of a post-war order that no longer reflects contemporary realities and is largely defunct. The five countries that have veto power in the Security Council are the victors of the war that ended almost 80 years ago: the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France. These states were still colonial states when the UN was founded in 1945. There are also ten other states in rotation. Germany has also been a member of the committee several times.

Resistance to the composition of the UN Security Council

There has been a UN working group for 15 years to explore equal representation of countries on the Council, but has so far been unsuccessful. Various expansion scenarios are being discussed, such as India, Japan and Brazil demanding permanent seats; Germany has now stopped this request. The US supports the idea that Russia only wants to give permanent seats to India and Brazil. And a group of middle powers – including Italy, Mexico, Turkey and South Korea – want 10 additional non-permanent seats but no additional permanent seats. None of the five veto powers is willing to give up its veto power – and none wants to add further veto power. In all these matters, our national interests are clearly visible.

The 54 members of the African Union (AU) have been demanding since 2005 that their continent receive two permanent seats with veto power and three non-permanent seats. “Everyone agrees that Africa should have a stronger voice in the Council,” wrote expert Gowan. “But what this actually means remains unclear, also because the African group is demanding two permanent seats – but has not said which country should take them.” However, any reform to the membership structure would have to amend the UN Charter. This requires a two-thirds vote in the UN General Assembly and approval of all veto rights.

Security Council Reform: China’s Role

What’s interesting about all this is that the country that has veto rights, China, always positions itself as supporting Southern countries and especially Africa – but does not explain specifically. . “China supports special arrangements for UN Security Council reform that prioritize African aspirations,” President Xi Jinping said recently at the China-Africa Forum on the sidelines of the Brics Summit in Johannesburg. “China will also ask multilateral financial institutions to amplify the voices of African countries.”

In an interview with DPA, Christoph Heusgen said it was surprising how often, as a UN ambassador, he experienced that “China, in particular, which has always acted as a supporter of developing countries, is the country that most stands in the way of Security Council reform.” He also has a guess as to why this is: “China ultimately wants to prevent its privileged position in the Security Council from being weakened by the addition of permanent members.”

The problem: China wants to break US power, but not at the expense of its own power in the Security Council. And there really is no other alternative.

UN reform: possible solutions

The blockade at the Security Council had at least one positive consequence: it gave new impetus to the UN General Assembly. “A striking impact of the war in Ukraine was the General Assembly’s renewed determination to expand its role in international security,” he wrote. Stewart Patrick of the US think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. For example, Zelensky put pressure on the veto: He passed a resolution in April 2022 that, according to Patrick, “requires a special debate by the assembly within ten days of the use of the veto.” is in mind. But this provides an initial incentive against veto.